Hall of Fame Breakdown: Second Base

As noted when we kicked off this series on Wednesday, the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement is scheduled for Jan. 23—less than three weeks from now. And over those three weeks, we here are JoeBlogs will bring you a position-by-position breakdown of the Hall of Fame candidates and where everyone currently stands.

This will include a look at this year’s ballot as well as an analysis of the JoeBlogs Baseball Hall of Fame survey that about 4,000 of you filled out over the last couple of weeks.

Hold on tight. It should be a wild ride.

Today, we’re looking at…

Second Base

OK, let’s remember—the percentages I’m giving you in parentheses are from our survey, NOT the BBWAA voting numbers. If you don’t see a percentage after the player (in this case, Brandon Phillips), it’s because I didn’t include that player in the survey. OK, here we go:

Fully qualified candidates (based on your vote):

1. Lou Whitaker, 90%

Strong candidates:

1. Bobby Grich, 54.2%

Fringe candidates:

1. Jeff Kent, 48.1%

2. Newt Allen (Negro Leagues), 33.6%

3. Willie Randolph, 33.1%

4. Robinson Cano, 30.6%

Admirable but not Hall of Fame careers:

1. Frank White, 28.3%

2. Dustin Pedroia, 23.6%

3. Ian Kinsler, 5.2%

On this year’s ballot: